New here - need help with understanding Clans

[Steve Ashton]

Perhaps a bit over simplified, and some may disagree, but I have always liked this way of looking at the idea behind Clan.

If you look at a map of Scotland that shows the Clans take a close look at the majority of them. What you will most likely find is the Clans areas are about regions and valleys.
There will be a guy who has the big house or who owns the land. Everyone else works for him or on his land. Not everyone in that valley would have the same name.
But if the guys from the next valley come over the mountain to steal our cattle, the head guy will ring a big bell. If you show up with your pitchfork and help us chase them off, you are one of us.

Later this idea of defense of areas became sort of institutionalized. By the time of the Disarming act the Clans were, in effect, private armies. (There is still one of these private armies today.)
These private armies could potentially pose a real threat to peace and order and were seen as such by some.

The Clan system today is quite different from what it was in the past. Today the idea of belonging to a Clan is more social, more a way to feel a connection to the place we come from.
In the past the Clan system was only in the Highlands. The people who lived in the Lowlands, where the vast majority of the population of the country lived, would not have felt that they belonged to a Highland Clan. They may not have cared about Tartan the way we do today and probably did not feel a need to dress in a kilt.
Those in the Lowlands were at one time the most literate people in the world. They invented the public library system. We still think of Scots as highly educated and some of the world's best Engineers. (Think "Scotty" of Star Trek.)
Today there are Lowland Clans and everyone with a Scottish heritage wants to be part of a Clan.

So the whole idea of what a Clan is, has changed and there is not one single, or universally accepted answer to your question.